Maybe I'm missing something here, but your post seems to support, rather than weaken, rseaney's claim. Let's not make an overly broad conclusion. The figures you cite support the claim that Stanford doesn't care much about the LSAT, not that they don't care about numbers.

If you follow the link and look at the analysis for boost per .1 point of GPA it's about 130%, which in the blogger's words: "absolutely dwarfs the T14 average, indicating that Stanford places a whole lot more weight on the GPA than it does on the LSAT."

I don't see a list for all schools, but that is higher than Harvard (109%), Columbia (53%) and NYU (69.5%)--all of which are certainly not "holistic." (These numbers come from the same blog).

All that being said, I have a <<<25 GPA and appear to be "held," so who knows.

I think your argument make sense since we 're talking about relative comparisons, but I just want to comment that those numbers feel a little misleading. A 1 point gain in lsat score is pretty marginal, whereas a .1 gain in gpa is pretty huge.

Kinda hard to believe the former makes a bigger difference at NYU. It makes me a little skeptical of their data.

Vincent, I agree that Stanford's medians suggest they are not out to game their medians and may be more holistic than Harvard, UChi, Penn, or UVA, even on GPAs. I was just worried that to the extent that your post seemed to be implying that Stanford cares less about numbers than 99 other good law schools, that might be misleading.

Chalupa, I mostly agree with you that 1 LSAT point is not really the same as .1 GPA point. On the one hand, in terms of gradations the two are initially comparable. There are 43 possible .1 GPA increases from 0 to 4.3, and there are 61 possible LSAT scores from 120 to 180. That being said, the "competitive" ranges are probably smaller. Competitive LSAT might be 166 (Cornell's 25th) to 180, or 14 possibilities while competitive GPAs are, what, 3.5 to 4.3, or 8 possibilities, so in that sense I agree with you that a .1 GPA gain is a bigger deal (e.g. at Stanford 25th to median is .1 GPA and 2 LSAT; median to 75th is .1 GPA and 3 LSAT). So maybe a better scale would be .05 increase on GPA. (Even using that rubric, though, Stanford would still value .05 GPA at ~65% vs. 14% for 1 LSAT point). But the flip side of that is that the LSAT has a longer tail, and at least in theory a 1 point LSAT gain is supposed to be a significant differentiator.

Of course, the relative value of those gains depends on where you're starting from. Compare someone with a 168 and a 3.9 and someone with a 176 and a 3.5... To get a fuller picture I guess we'd need to see more about score distributions.

Finally, given the obvious fact that one bad semester or class can really mess with your GPA, I'd be surprised if Stanford didn't take addenda seriously. I feel like that's just the reasonable flipside of being heavy on GPA as a predictor.

PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

IrishJew wrote:Vincent, I agree that Stanford's medians suggest they are not out to game their medians and may be more holistic than Harvard, UChi, Penn, or UVA, even on GPAs. I was just worried that to the extent that your post seemed to be implying that Stanford cares less about numbers than 99 other good law schools, that might be misleading.

Chalupa, I mostly agree with you that 1 LSAT point is not really the same as .1 GPA point. On the one hand, in terms of gradations the two are initially comparable. There are 43 possible .1 GPA increases from 0 to 4.3, and there are 61 possible LSAT scores from 120 to 180. That being said, the "competitive" ranges are probably smaller. Competitive LSAT might be 166 (Cornell's 25th) to 180, or 14 possibilities while competitive GPAs are, what, 3.5 to 4.3, or 8 possibilities, so in that sense I agree with you that a .1 GPA gain is a bigger deal (e.g. at Stanford 25th to median is .1 GPA and 2 LSAT; median to 75th is .1 GPA and 3 LSAT). So maybe a better scale would be .05 increase on GPA. (Even using that rubric, though, Stanford would still value .05 GPA at ~65% vs. 14% for 1 LSAT point). But the flip side of that is that the LSAT has a longer tail, and at least in theory a 1 point LSAT gain is supposed to be a significant differentiator.

Of course, the relative value of those gains depends on where you're starting from. Compare someone with a 168 and a 3.9 and someone with a 176 and a 3.5... To get a fuller picture I guess we'd need to see more about score distributions.

Finally, given the obvious fact that one bad semester or class can really mess with your GPA, I'd be surprised if Stanford didn't take addenda seriously. I feel like that's just the reasonable flipside of being heavy on GPA as a predictor.

PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

that's an interesting way to frame the tradeoffs^ personally I think my LSAT studying was probably more valuable than most of the classes I've taken in college. Probably not comparable to the difference in knowledge/time/effort requisite to jump 10 A-'s to A's tho

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

I calculated my GPA once if the 100%s I'd gotten were A+.

It was a 3.93.

I'll raise you one. My 3.3 GPA was top 10% of my class when I graduated in the 90s. Makes it a little tough to compete in an age of grade inflation (though I don't mean to take away anything from what you all have done).

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

I calculated my GPA once if the 100%s I'd gotten were A+.

It was a 3.93.

I'll raise you one. My 3.3 GPA was top 10% of my class when I graduated in the 90s. Makes it a little tough to compete in an age of grade inflation (though I don't mean to take away anything from what you all have done).

haha no your's is worse. mine is at least FIXABLE (HINT HINT LSAC) but that is more unfair.

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

I calculated my GPA once if the 100%s I'd gotten were A+.

It was a 3.93.

I'll raise you one. My 3.3 GPA was top 10% of my class when I graduated in the 90s. Makes it a little tough to compete in an age of grade inflation (though I don't mean to take away anything from what you all have done).

haha no your's is worse. mine is at least FIXABLE (HINT HINT LSAC) but that is more unfair.

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

I calculated my GPA once if the 100%s I'd gotten were A+.

It was a 3.93.

I'll raise you one. My 3.3 GPA was top 10% of my class when I graduated in the 90s. Makes it a little tough to compete in an age of grade inflation (though I don't mean to take away anything from what you all have done).

But doesn't the LSAC score report compare you to the people who graduated in the few years before you? The year I started my school implemented a pretty strict grade deflation policy that lowered grades rapidly. It hurt my transcript evaluation (because I was being compared to pre-deflation people), but my understanding is that for people who graduated 3+ years after me the comparisons on their transcript analysis were reasonable.

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

I calculated my GPA once if the 100%s I'd gotten were A+.

It was a 3.93.

I know. My school technically allowed A+s but disincentivised them. I had two profs tell me they wanted to give me A+ but didn't want the hassle.

But at least I had them. My wife (still in undergrad) is a a straight A student. She got 1 A- and will never have a 4.0 because her school doesn't have A+s. Good thing she doesn't want to go to Yale (or any other law school, for that matter)...

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

I calculated my GPA once if the 100%s I'd gotten were A+.

It was a 3.93.

I'll raise you one. My 3.3 GPA was top 10% of my class when I graduated in the 90s. Makes it a little tough to compete in an age of grade inflation (though I don't mean to take away anything from what you all have done).

But doesn't the LSAC score report compare you to the people who graduated in the few years before you? The year I started my school implemented a pretty strict grade deflation policy that lowered grades rapidly. It hurt my transcript evaluation (because I was being compared to pre-deflation people), but my understanding is that for people who graduated 3+ years after me the comparisons on their transcript analysis were reasonable.

You are only compared to the people this cycle to three years before this cycle who applied to law school, not everyone who graduated.

But no one from my school is applying with a 4.0...so that's something t least.

scoobers wrote:You are only compared to the people this cycle to three years before this cycle who applied to law school, not everyone who graduated.

But no one from my school is applying with a 4.0...so that's something t least.

I do not think this is correct. You are right that LSAC only compares you to people in the CAS system (do they report class rank if it's on your transcript?), but I'm pretty sure that LSAC tries to compare you with your contemporaries. Here is from the LSAC website:

Cum. GPA %ile Rank*: The percent of graduates whose GPA was below yours for each of your schools. The people who make up this pool may have graduated during different time periods, but all were registered for the Credential Assembly Service during the three most recent years you were in attendance. [Emphasis mine]

I understand this to mean that you will be compared to people who applied to law school while you were a student. So it might include the guy who graduated 10 years before you and applied while you were a senior, but it won't include the people graduating 10 years after you. (I don't know why they do it that way instead of just comparing people who graduated in the same year as you; surely they can track that.) Do you think I'm misreading this?

IrishJew wrote:PS Just for fun I crunched the numbers. Assuming you had a 3.66 GPA, and assuming you earned A- in every single class, you would have to change 10 of those to As or 5 of them to A+s to get up to a 3.76. Though obviously the more lower grades you have the fewer you need to change, and the lower your GPA the more A's will make an impact. How does that level of studying compare with the level or prep people do for the LSAT? Take that for what you will.

I calculated my GPA once if the 100%s I'd gotten were A+.

It was a 3.93.

I'll raise you one. My 3.3 GPA was top 10% of my class when I graduated in the 90s. Makes it a little tough to compete in an age of grade inflation (though I don't mean to take away anything from what you all have done).

But doesn't the LSAC score report compare you to the people who graduated in the few years before you? The year I started my school implemented a pretty strict grade deflation policy that lowered grades rapidly. It hurt my transcript evaluation (because I was being compared to pre-deflation people), but my understanding is that for people who graduated 3+ years after me the comparisons on their transcript analysis were reasonable.

Right. But the fact remains that for medians, GPA matters. Schools may look at me relative to my class, but taking on sub 3.7 GPAs for schools like HYS is something they have to do very selectively.

scoobers wrote:You are only compared to the people this cycle to three years before this cycle who applied to law school, not everyone who graduated.

But no one from my school is applying with a 4.0...so that's something t least.

I do not think this is correct. You are right that LSAC only compares you to people in the CAS system (do they report class rank if it's on your transcript?), but I'm pretty sure that LSAC tries to compare you with your contemporaries. Here is from the LSAC website:

Cum. GPA %ile Rank*: The percent of graduates whose GPA was below yours for each of your schools. The people who make up this pool may have graduated during different time periods, but all were registered for the Credential Assembly Service during the three most recent years you were in attendance. [Emphasis mine]

I understand this to mean that you will be compared to people who applied to law school while you were a student. So it might include the guy who graduated 10 years before you and applied while you were a senior, but it won't include the people graduating 10 years after you. (I don't know why they do it that way instead of just comparing people who graduated in the same year as you; surely they can track that.) Do you think I'm misreading this?

I read it as people who are applying (aka registered for CRS) to law school from your shool this year, last year, and and year before, regardless of graduation date.

scoobers wrote:You are only compared to the people this cycle to three years before this cycle who applied to law school, not everyone who graduated.

But no one from my school is applying with a 4.0...so that's something t least.

I do not think this is correct. You are right that LSAC only compares you to people in the CAS system (do they report class rank if it's on your transcript?), but I'm pretty sure that LSAC tries to compare you with your contemporaries. Here is from the LSAC website:

Cum. GPA %ile Rank*: The percent of graduates whose GPA was below yours for each of your schools. The people who make up this pool may have graduated during different time periods, but all were registered for the Credential Assembly Service during the three most recent years you were in attendance. [Emphasis mine]

I understand this to mean that you will be compared to people who applied to law school while you were a student. So it might include the guy who graduated 10 years before you and applied while you were a senior, but it won't include the people graduating 10 years after you. (I don't know why they do it that way instead of just comparing people who graduated in the same year as you; surely they can track that.) Do you think I'm misreading this?

I read it as people who are applying (aka registered for CRS) to law school from your shool this year, last year, and and year before, regardless of graduation date.

But doesn't it say they registered for CAS...during the three most recent years you were in attendance?

vuthy wrote:Right. But the fact remains that for medians, GPA matters. Schools may look at me relative to my class, but taking on sub 3.7 GPAs for schools like HYS is something they have to do very selectively.

Oh, I COMPLETELY agree that it hurts. And even if there were no medians reported I still don't think having a 3.3 could NOT hurt you in today's inflated climate. The first time they see your grade they'll think "that's a crappy GPA," even if it's subsequently explained away. I bet West Point kids run into this problem all the time.

scoobers wrote:You are only compared to the people this cycle to three years before this cycle who applied to law school, not everyone who graduated.

But no one from my school is applying with a 4.0...so that's something t least.

I do not think this is correct. You are right that LSAC only compares you to people in the CAS system (do they report class rank if it's on your transcript?), but I'm pretty sure that LSAC tries to compare you with your contemporaries. Here is from the LSAC website:

Cum. GPA %ile Rank*: The percent of graduates whose GPA was below yours for each of your schools. The people who make up this pool may have graduated during different time periods, but all were registered for the Credential Assembly Service during the three most recent years you were in attendance. [Emphasis mine]

I understand this to mean that you will be compared to people who applied to law school while you were a student. So it might include the guy who graduated 10 years before you and applied while you were a senior, but it won't include the people graduating 10 years after you. (I don't know why they do it that way instead of just comparing people who graduated in the same year as you; surely they can track that.) Do you think I'm misreading this?

I read it as people who are applying (aka registered for CRS) to law school from your shool this year, last year, and and year before, regardless of graduation date.

But doesn't it say they registered for CAS...during the three most recent years you were in attendance?

Yeah I am probably wrong. I'll ask scottriqui or something. I mean I don't think CAS existed when he was a student, so his thing would consist of like, five people.